Editorial: Stone helped our most vulnerable

Barbara Stone, who died last week at the age of 79, has left an incredible legacy of significantly improving the lives of people in our state with disabilities and special needs. Her life's work has brought people with once was called mental retardation out of the shadows of our society and given them lives with meaning and respect.

Because of her drive, persistence and passion, people with mental retardation were given options beyond being sent to one of the few special centers in South Carolina. She pushed Greenville County, and then the entire state of South Carolina, to recognize the needs of people with disabilities and special needs and help provide care in a setting closer to home and in a manner where they were treated with dignity.

Her lifelong devotion to people with such disabilities started in the 1960s when her second son, Barham, was born. But her ability to push forward despite obstacles and achieve results when defeat seemed certain were formed much earlier in her life.

Stone's mother was widowed at a young age, and that experience taught the young girl to take responsibility at an earlier age and also, surely, to deal with disappointments in life. In fact, Stone had to drop out of college after her first year because she didn't have the money to continue.

Her second son, Barham, is the reason she dropped her career as a secretary and bookkeeper and devoted the rest of her life to improving the lives of people who were mentally disabled, autistic, and survivors of head and spinal cord injuries.

In an interview when she retired in 1999 as executive director of the Greenville County Disabilities and Special Needs Board, Stone described how she and her husband realized something was wrong with their second son when his speech didn't develop on time, his hyperactivity was evident at age 4, and it became obvious he didn't understand the dangers of simple things such as walking into the street.

The parents finally had to admit that all their love and all their hard work couldn't resolve the issues of their son. And then, because there simply were no other options in Greenville at that time, they took their son to Whitten Center in Clinton where he lived for the next 14 years.

Frustrated by the lack of resources in Greenville, Stone and two friends from the Greenville Association for Retarded Children set out one cold January morning in the 1960s, assisted by fraternities at Furman University, and took canisters into the streets and raised $1,000. From there came the idea and the seed money for a summer camp for those with disabilities. And that was just the beginning.

A graduate of Greenville High School, Stone relied on the help of some powerful people who also were part of the Greenville High family to help her in the crusade to bring more resources and more government involvement to nonprofits trying to help the disabled. Dick Riley, who then was a state senator and who later became governor and U.S. secretary of education, helped Stone turn the county charitable organization for retarded children into a county government agency. And with help from Nick Theodore, also a legislator at the time, they got even more government assistance and involvement.

"She was a wonderful human being, and she dedicated her life to serving especially young people who had mental difficulties, physical difficulties," Riley told Greenville News writer Ron Barnett last week. After Greenville got a its own Commission on Mental Retardation, Stone, Riley and others made sure every other county got on board with their own commission, too.

And from there services eventually became available throughout the entire state for people with disabilities, autism, and head and spinal cord injuries.

Those children and adults "had no voice at all until people like Barbara Stone stepped up and made a commitment and sacrificed a great deal to bring this all about, Theodore, who went on to serve as the state's lieutenant governor, told Barnett.

In Stone's honor, pro golfer Bill Haas set up a "Birdies for Barbara" foundation and contributes $25 for each birdie and $100 for each eagle he makes, and he challenges businesses to match his contribution. Haas also has named the Barbara Stone Foundation as the recipient of his charity earnings, and one day is planning a fundraiser.

Barbara Stone did so much to change the lives of some of the most vulnerable people in our society. A fitting memorial would be to honor her cause by making sure the work continues.